Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing to do with Far Cry or its characters.

Author's Note: A huge thank you to everyone who read Smother, I was blown away that people actually liked the fic I was writing here! As promised, I've decided to expand the story into a multichaptered fic, which will focus on an AU plot centered around John and Mac and their unlikely relationship as they navigate the events of the game.

Thanks so much for reading!

-x-Sass-x-

"You know better babe, you know better babe,
Than to smile at me, smile at me like that
You know better babe, you know better babe,
Than to hold me just, hold me just like that.

I know who I am when I'm alone
Something else when I see you
You don't understand, you should never know
How easy you are to need."

It Will Come Back – Hozier

The sun was a reddened disc, hanging low in the sky, peeking just above welling pink clouds. The light was fading slowly, an orange haze that coloured everything that it touched. Shadows grew in length, stretching out limitlessly on the meadow below her. There was a chilled breeze, just enough to make the hairs on her arms stand on end, but it was hardly unpleasant; a gentle respite on her bruised skin.

As she looked to the horizon, Mac wondered just what particular brand of madness brought her here.

She was perched atop the narrow walkway built into his sign, the giant white letters towering high above her. His message had come across her radio earlier that afternoon, this time not one of his taunting monologues but instead a request. A parlay. A time where they could meet and talk alone and without back up or weapons.

The last time they'd been face to face had been the cleansing and even then Mac only remembered the bare bones of the experience. She'd been drugged out of her mind, high on bliss, oddly trapped in a euphoric glass case that had set the world around her in slow motion. She didn't remember how she'd reached the water that night, her first memory being the all too familiar hands clasped around her neck and pushing her under. John had taunted her, threatened her, but somehow with her blood pounding in her ears and white sparks glittering past her eyes she'd been unable to truly understand the words he'd been speaking, his voice little more than a low rumble in her ears. If it hadn't been for Pastor Jerome and the resistance, she would have likely still been in his bunker, surrounded by a whole world of pain and lost to the world.

The smart thing to do would have been to ignore his request and stay hunkered down. But when had she ever been someone to do the smart thing?

Dutch had torn her a new one for agreeing to the meeting, listening in on her airwaves like an overbearing parent. Convinced in his gruff, self-righteous way that John would put a knife through her throat the second they were alone Dutch had thrown every insult under the sun in her direction, had called her stupid and thoughtless and suicidal. Irritated by the sudden intrusion to her privacy, Mac had shrugged him off, telling him bitterly that the only reason he cared was because of what she meant to his precious resistance.

She hadn't intended to hurt the old man, but at least he'd left her alone after that.

He was right and Mac knew it. But some questions were worth risking her neck over and John felt like a constant question mark in her thoughts, dwelling in places a psychotic cult leader had no right to be. She lived in fear of the day she'd be confronted with his face again, the man who had once felt so important to her that his memory still darkened her thoughts. She didn't fear him, but rather herself, feared how she would feel with him so close again. Would her judgement fade? Would she see him for the Baptist role that he now played or would his eyes still be those of a man who'd understood her darker qualities when no one else did?

Her questions needed answers in order to rid them of their power. When John had called her, Mac had agreed purely to sate that curiosity inside herself. Dutch didn't understand, wouldn't since Mac had absolutely no intention of divulging any of their past history to anyone among the resistance.

She didn't trust John, not anymore, but that didn't mean that she thought he'd kill her. For a man so intent on saving her soul, Mac doubted that today was the day that he'd choose to jam a knife in her heart. Besides despite his demands, she was hardly alone. Somewhere in the surrounding forest, Peaches prowled, Mac's early warning system in case John intended to have any of his men flank around and sneak up on her. As a contingency, she carried a knife in her boot and a pistol secreted underneath her untucked red flannel shirt.

It never hurt to be prepared. With John Seed, violence was almost a certainty.

"You came." His calculating voice wasn't a surprise, Mac having spotted him approach the sign from her vantage point a few moments before. He was more than a little breathless thanks to the climb up to their perch as he approached, maintaining an almost respectful distance before sitting beside her. "I wasn't sure that you'd have the courage."

"Says the man who hides behind his chosen." Mac shrugged, nonchalant as she sat cross legged in the middle of the walkway. She took a drag from the cigarette wedged between her fingertips, before waving it over towards the forest below them in illustration. "Speaking of... just how many snipers do you have out there watching your ass, John?"

"Enough. Courage doesn't necessarily equal stupidity. I've no intention of becoming some resistance trophy."

"Pity. You'd look good on my wall." Mac quipped, smirking around her cigarette as she took another drag. Beside her, John's eyebrows flicked upwards in quiet amusement, although he didn't make a sound. "I didn't come here to kill you. If I did, you'd already be dead."

"And you'd follow me. My men would make sure of it."

"Sounds like a fair trade to me. Let's not pretend either of us are scared to die."

"You should be." Staring out to the horizon, John smiled, the sickeningly smug gesture of a man who thought that he had it all. "You turned your back on God. When your time comes, he'll only do the same."

"Perhaps God turned his back on me first?" The question was a little too honest for her liking, but it was the first thing to escape her lips as Mac turned to look at him over her shoulder. Immediately she felt the weight of his eyes, bright blue trying to read her and most likely succeeding. Already Mac was starting to realise her worst fears, falling back into old habits with far too much ease for a man she should consider an enemy. When he looked at her, it was so easy to remember the man who'd sat and argued faith with her over a bottle of whisky, the confidante who had shared her bed. On those nights she'd inadvertently told him more than she'd told anyone else, had shared her past crisis of faith like it had been nothing. Now, she regretted telling him absolutely anything with the way his eyes burned into her, full of knowledge that this version of John Seed had no right to possess.

She couldn't forget the atrocities this new John had committed. But she couldn't forget the man he had been before either.

"Tell me something? If God is so perfect, then why the Hell did he create monsters like you and me?"

"Because God's work isn't easy and monsters are only a matter of perspective. He chose my family because he knew we were capable of preparing for the collapse no matter what was asked of us. As for you..." He paused, pretending to give the matter actual thought, a hand idly reaching up and smoothing his beard. "You're the same as always; an animal without a purpose."

"Trouble is, God didn't tell you any of this bullshit personally, did he? It was all Joseph and his fucking blissed out visions. You believe this shit purely because it let's you be the monster you could never be before."

"And you stay because this war you're waging allows you to do the same." John's reaction was far more measured than she'd hoped for, the wrath she'd been trying to provoke buried cleverly behind his calm words. He was still reading her, manipulating her hopeless attempts to provoke him in a way that backfired and made her own blood boil. "Or are you about to tell you that you've changed since Atlanta?"

"I didn't join a fucking cult for one. I figure you've changed enough for the both of us."

"And I'm beginning to think that you're the one person who will enjoy the collapse." John laughed, although the sound was more like a sneer. "You seem so intent on watching the world burn, someday you'll get the chance." Another smile, all teeth and false charm, the same face and voice that his television persona taunted her with in every new outpost she liberated. "Wouldn't that be perfect if that had been God's plan for you all along?"

"What the fuck do you want from me, John?!" Quickly running out of patience, Mac fought the urge to extinguish her cigarette on John's face by crushing it against the railing in from of her, black specks of ash sticking to the metal. When her eyes shot back to his they were filled with irritation, her infamous short temper unable to remain hidden. "Or did you honestly bring me here so we could have a theological fucking debate?"

"As fun as that sounds, I doubt you and me will ever really find any common ground." He mused, leaning back to rest against the base of the letter 'E' behind him, his body stretched out like a lazy cat. The way he looked at her was pure sin, as though he knew that deep down there was a part of her, however small that still found him attractive. For her part, Mac tried her best not to notice how his shirt grew tighter across his chest, pulling apart to reveal a fresh medley of healing scars and tattoos. Instead, she focused on her temper and gave it kindling, hoping that if she used all of her energy on being angry with him, there'd be no room for anything else.

It didn't work. With John Seed, wrath and lust often came as a pair. That had been what she'd always loved the most.

"So why parlay?"

"Because I want you to leave."

"No shit."

"I'm serious..." Blue eyes pierced at her own, jarring her with how quickly they went from taunting to stern. "Leave Holland Valley. Leave Hope County and let the resistance burn themselves out to embers. There's nothing for you here."

"Just like that? John the big bad Baptist is just going to let me walk away?"

"I'll even let you keep your soul. The Garden is no place for you anyway."

"And I'm supposed to just pack up? Leave my friends? My squad?"

"Ahh yes, the lifelong friends you met just weeks ago." He rolled his eyes, unimpressed. "And of course, the squad you left behind in burning wreckage to save your own skin? Shall we cut the pretence that they are the ones keeping you here?" Like a predator sensing blood, he bared his teeth in another smile, leaning that little bit closer into her personal space. The look in his eyes spoke of a man who had won, of the smug self-satisfaction gained from outsmarting an opponent. It was the lawyer in him, the man who lived to win an argument, who enjoyed watching his opposition flail after the killing blow. He spoke with another smile, his words slow, almost as though he was savouring each syllable. "Go and take your sin with you."

Wait.

In an instant, so much fell into place, a light clicking on behind Mac's eyes. In place of feeling bemused by his sudden self-control, now she understood why he had been so calm, so arrogant and self-assured. John was a lot of things and many of them bad, but he was nothing if not meticulous. No way would he meet with her in the flesh without an agenda. Every word of their exchange had been planned, prepared for, right down to her insults and taunts. He'd anticipated it all, had been ready to use it to convince her to leave and solve all of his problems in doing so.

"Go and take your sin with you."

He wasn't talking about her sin anymore. This was something she could use.

"I thought we were cutting the bullshit?" Mac raised an eyebrow, swivelling on the spot so that she could fully look him in the eye. The corners of her mouth peaked into a smile, his face questioning as she watched him try to anticipate her next move. "You're not selfless, John. You never fucking were. And this is just you trying to save your own skin."

"My skin?"

"You're not scared of dying, I get it. But you're sure as shit scared about what comes after. About what happens when all your sin is brought to light. You say you're free from sin, but we both know that's not true."

"A lecture from you, really?" John raised a dismissive eyebrow. "Please..."

"I could list them, if you like?" Mac laughed, running a hand across the shaved part of her head, enjoying his arrogance now that she'd rediscovered her own. "Pride, wrath, lust... you were filled with all three when you held my head under at the cleansing. I saw the way you smiled, remember? Even while I was fighting you. I've seen it before, back when you'd choke me as we fucked?" She was grinning now, flashing her teeth just as he had done only moments before. This time she was the one who could smell blood, her every word designed to bait him further, just like he'd done to her. "In that moment it was just you and me... locked in sin. Just like it always used to be. Admit it John, I bring out the worst in you, the things your brother tells you to preach against. The things he tells you to be ashamed of. That's why you want me gone. Not to save myself. But to save you from disappointing your precious Father any more than you already have."

John's face faded before her eyes, the arrogance and false good humour draining from his features. He stared at her with a hard intensity, blue eyes biting into her own. She'd expected him to snap, to cut her off mid monologue like she always did to him and yet he remained silent, his lips twisting into a grimace. He was fighting her even now, willing himself to remain calm when in reality Mac didn't doubt for a second that he wanted to tear every last sinful word from her throat.

He might not have given her the rise that she'd been looking for, but his silence gave him away. She'd spoken the truth and in doing so had evened the playing field between them.

In that moment, it felt fucking good to claw back a little power over John Seed. Too good.

"I will break you." After what felt like a lifetime of her gloating, John finally spoke out, his voice flat, determined. His eyebrows raised, he angled his head towards her, his lips twitching into a smirk when she didn't back down and duck away. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But if you choose to stay, then you won't win. I will shatter you into a fucking thousand pieces if that's what it takes to bring you to heel."

"And you'll enjoy every second. Isn't that a sin in itself?" She was snowballing now, high on her new-found power. With every word she was slipping, losing focus. Suddenly her concentration was almost wholly on him, fixated on the heady feeling of having him under her control. They were suddenly back playing a game again as though the last four years had never happened, the cult and the resistance as far from her mind as possible. They were no longer the Deputy and the Baptist; instead merely Mac and John, addicted to a near constant battle for dominance that they'd shared since the day that they met.

It was reckless, irresponsible and everything in between, but by the time Mac realised what she was doing she was in too deep to force herself to care.

He was so close that it didn't take much effort from her to move closer, pushing herself up so that she was kneeling in front of him. He'd had his mouth open to respond with some no doubt venomous retort, but she'd stopped him in her tracks the moment she pressed closer, his lips hanging ever so slightly parted as he watched her carefully. With hands that didn't entirely feel her own, Mac reached forwards, pulling apart the open collar of his blue shirt so that she could read the word written across his chest. Sloth. For every word there was to describe John, that would have never been her first choice.

"Is this how you break them?" With her right hand, Mac traced the scarred letters across his skin, as above her John let out an unsteady breath. His body was rigid, stock still beneath her touch. It was as though he was terrified of scaring her away and encouraging her all at once. "You mark them with their sins?"

"Sometimes a man must be broken to fully admit their sin." His voice was low, cautious. "Only when we freely admit every one of our sins can we atone."

"And is that you or your brother talking?" Quirking an eyebrow, Mac smiled. Having finished tracing the letters, she left her hand resting on his sternum, her palm flat against his bare skin. "What sins would he want you to carve into me?"

"Right now? All of them." John shook his head. Although his words had been followed by a breathy laugh, his eyes were wide, dilated as he watched her push closer, their faces barely a couple of inches apart. "You're fuckin' sin incarnate."

"So you keep sayin'."

"Kate..."

It was her first name that stopped her, the sound so alien to her ears. It had been so long since anyone had called her that, in what felt like a lifetime ago when her parents still loved her. Instead, the word was being uttered out of desperation by John, his voice husky whilst his heart hammered beneath her hand. The sound had been a plea, both to stop and to continue, a conflicted noise that was a perfect reflection of the man himself.

Mac faltered and her gaze dropped from his, falling to her chest. It was then when she saw it, a bright, red dot of light dancing across the flannel of her shirt.

The snipers.

She let go as though he was red hot, raising her hands as high above her hand as she could manage. John's features immediately lightened as if he could breathe again, looking over his shoulder to the horizon as though he had remembered the backup he left posted in the forest. Avoiding any sudden movements, Mac moved backwards along the walkway, her eyes skimming the treeline for the sniper who had her in their sights. Almost immediately, the red dot on her chest disappeared.

With distance came clarity and Mac was suddenly hit with the realisation of just how close she almost came to ruin.

She'd been right about herself all along.

"I'm not leaving." The words were resolute and quick to leave her mouth, filled with a feigned determination that she wished she'd possessed earlier. Standing, she dusted herself down with her hands, brushing invisible specks of dirt from her torn jeans.

"You're a fool."

"Am I? Last time I checked, you're the one chasing fairy tales." She rolled her eyes, trying to look anywhere but directly at him, afraid to meet his eye again and lose herself even deeper. Instead she looked out to the horizon, watching as the last of the sun disappeared behind the distant hills. It would be dark soon, a sign if ever she needed one that their cosy little parlay was over. "Tell your brother to give me back my people. Otherwise I'll burn his little church to the fucking ground."

"Try it and I won't hesitate to kill you." John shrugged, standing himself. He indicated to the tree line, a cocky smile spread across his face once more. "You can have the rest of tonight, Kate. Call it a gift for old time's sake if you want. But in the morning, my chosen will be out searching again. When they find you, I'll try to remember this little chat." He smiled, every part of the gesture mirroring the dark glint in his eyes. "There's so much you need to atone for."

Mac didn't trust herself to reply.

Instead, she turned her back on him in the way she should have done all along, before she found herself caught in more petty power games that spoke of a relationship long since finished. Practically able to feel his eyes burning into the back of head she withdrew, headed for the ladder as quickly as her pride would allow.

Boots back on the ground, Mac broke into a run, suddenly feeling vulnerable with him still watching from above. She ran in the opposite direction to his snipers, through the fields and a nearby copse of trees before picking up the pace as she neared the road and the Pickup she'd 'borrowed' from Dutch. Her heart racing, she didn't let herself feel safe until she was sitting in the crusty old vehicle, her forehead resting against the steering wheel as she fought to take control of her breathing and her thoughts.

A cat like growl sent her jumping within her own skin, accompanied by the sound of claws against metal as Peaches pawed at the passenger side door of the Pickup. Laughing at her own jumpiness, Mac reached over, pushing the door open and allowing the big cat to jump in beside her. Closing the door around Peaches was no easy task but with her back up riding shotgun, Mac turned the key in the ignition whilst Peaches affectionately nuzzled at her side.

She'd thought that by meeting John that night, she'd immediately have all the answers she needed, her curiosity sated and all power the man held over her thoughts lost. But as she drove down the open road, a hand mussing idly through Peaches fur, she realised that if anything, she had more questions now than she'd had before. Questions about herself, about her loyalties, about her ability to hunt down a man who still so closely resembled a friend were at the forefront of her thoughts as they had always been, but now they were joined by new questions about John himself. Mac wondered just what kind of hold Joseph had over him and just how much of the man she remembered remained locked beneath the Baptist persona he now wore. It was dangerous, to think of her enemy as anything more than inhuman and yet there she was, considering just how much humanity John Seed had left behind those blue eyes.

Dutch had been right; the parlay had been a mistake. Somehow she'd opened Pandora's box and there was no way of returning the thoughts in her head, no matter how much doubt they brought with them in their wake. Forbidden uncertainties that she didn't dare share with any of her friends within the resistance for fear of misunderstanding and mistrust. With everything John had done since he'd taken control of Holland Valley, how could they react any other way? And why couldn't she dismiss him with that exact same disgust?

She couldn't let him beat them, she wouldn't, not when there was so much at stake. But knowing that that the man she cared for wasn't as dead she'd thought was only going to make her mission harder.